is not only a general pursuit of video platforms, but also a future development trend. In this trend, the combination of live broadcast and variety show content has become one of the directions of the live broadcast industry and video platforms. So, can this direction bring new breakthroughs to the live broadcast industry? Why not take a look at the author's interpretation first.
live broadcast and variety shows are creating more and more horizontal relationships. The trend of
is first manifested in that anchors are getting exposure opportunities outside the live broadcast room. In addition to the top anchors, short videos and live broadcast platforms are creating a stage for more anchors through variety shows. Typical examples include the recent Kuaishou's "Sounds Like Summer Flowers", the "Midsummer Live Season" ceremony of Douyin , the "China New Anchor" of Taobao Live , and the "Play Eyes Please Take Place" of Huajiao Live.
On the other hand, the variety show style is blowing into more brand live broadcast rooms. On Douyin, the official live broadcast room of the sanitary napkin brand Gao Jiesi created a "can't pick up girls and go home", which is a dialogue program close to the setting of Sohu video " Send 100 Girls and Go Home ".
Home furnishing brand Hengjie Sanitary Ware , in conjunction with People's Daily New Media and Xinhua Bookstore , launched the "This Space is Very China" public space renovation and upgrading project, broadcasting on 12 platforms including Weibo , Douyin, and Video Account. Unlike Gao Jie Si's live broadcast room content, Hengjie can be said to be completely a brand independent behavior.
These changes are easily associated with topics that are the upgrade of live content. Since the beginning of this year, whether it is anchors who have created content brands on Douyin Kuaishou such as @Oriental Selection, @Crazy Little Yang, @Jiangyu Alimu, or Taobao Live has determined contentization as the focus of development, it indicates that content upgrades have become an overall trend in the live broadcast industry. The integration of
and variety shows seems natural under this new demand.
1. From the need for live broadcast of variety shows to live broadcasting, to the need for live broadcasting of variety shows
"Live broadcast + variety show" is not a new concept. With the increase in popularity of the live broadcast industry and public awareness, the linkage between the two has long begun. The difference between
and the present is that when the live broadcast field is still seeking industry standards and platform land grabbing, the main body of introducing live broadcast into variety shows is the previous variety show producer and video platform. The main idea is to create variety show content broadcast in the form of live broadcast, and produce variety shows based on live broadcast as the theme.
The former attempt is based on the real-time and interactive live broadcasts to the variety show. To a certain extent, many attempts of "cloud variety shows" in 2020 have the last resort in the home environment, such as Youku's "Dining Good Diner" and "Exercise Good" and iQiyi 's "Homestay at Home" series. However, there has been no real content that has appeared in the circle since then.
. There are more than 20 programs focusing on live broadcast themes in 2020 alone.
, a kind of program, mainly selling goods, including Taobao's "Let's Go For the Beautiful", Youku's "Hot Products Come", Tencent 's " Lipstick Prince " and "Goose Surprise", invites celebrities to recommend good products; there is also anchor selection, the most typical one is "Struggle! "Anchor" invited 25 female stars as trainee anchors to practice, which can be called the live version of "Sister Lang".
looks back now and has not produced any really good content and IP. The fundamental reason is that these contents are often based on the ideas of video platforms and producers. They have not thought about the entire conversion link and lack real needs from the industry.
But in the past two years, the rapid changes in the live broadcast industry have changed its attitude towards the variety show industry.
On the one hand, Douyin and Kuaishou have consolidated their leading position in the field of all-region live broadcasts, and the platform has always been making frequent efforts in the field of variety shows, making resource integration possible; on the other hand, the live broadcast industry has initially entered the stock period after experiencing rapid development and is seeking new opportunities.
combined with the several programs mentioned at the beginning of the article, it is not difficult to find the active attitude of the live broadcast industry.After three years of land grabbing, live streaming has formed a relatively stable ecosystem. According to iMedia Consulting data, the number of online live streaming users in China reached 635 million in 2021, and is expected to rise to 660 million in 2022.
In such a stock period, optimizing products and services, further revitalizing stocks, and increasing payments are the main focus of the industry, and this is also the key background for various platforms to focus on live content broadcasts. Introducing a mature content business model of variety shows is one of the strategies to alleviate the difficulty of content development.
This allows the variety shows that enter the live broadcast room at this stage to show some characteristics.
is the difference in platform philosophy first. Although there is also a need to create content in the circle, the greater purpose of platforms such as Douyin and Kuai are making efforts in variety shows is obviously to promote internal vitality. Whether Douyin is the IP of the "midsummer live broadcast season" or Kuaishou's selection of "summer flower" anchors, it means attracting traffic and promoting vitality for platform anchors, and there is also certain user customization in aesthetic taste.
Secondly, the anchor group focused on the platform's content is also very interesting. Whether it is the talent in the promotion selected by Taobao Live "China's New Anchor", or the content-based talents focused on Douyin's "live season" and Kuaishou's "Sound Like Summer Flowers", without exception, they are mainly middle-level and even newcomers. Among the 30 "Summer Flowers", only the girl and Xia Xiaohua are among the tens of millions of fans, and only a few are millions of fans.
The variety show content dominated by brands also has the idea of promoting vitality in the era of stock. Gao Jiesi "receives girls not simple and go home". There is no introduction to brand products in the live broadcast. On the contrary, it outputs topics such as life, emotions, and work. Only the program name and the brand slogan "Girls not simple" create intertextual communication, which promotes the audience to develop brand awareness .
Compared with Hengjie Sanitary Ware's "This Space is Very Chinese" has more content about the brand, but the program itself is a space transformation similar to " Dream Transformation Home ", and has the public welfare nature of public health space transformation. The same point is that the brand image should be created more than the product output. This may show the adaptability and innovation shown by brand live broadcast rooms in the era of content live broadcasts. The overall "variety show" of
live content is a direction of efforts to promote internal activation and deeply explore existing demand in the new industry environment. For these content, on the one hand, we cannot simply use the data indicators of long video variety shows to measure it, or evaluate whether it is successful or not based on the degree of popularity. After all, from the perspective of development purposes, this is not a content war aimed at attracting new content.
But on the other hand, whether these contents can show attractiveness to platform users is the basis for forming a proactive effect, so there are still certain requirements for content quality.
2. Variety show or drama, which one is the medicine for live broadcast content?
If the live broadcast and variety show compare content, can it be compared?
Currently, long, short video or live broadcast platforms have not been able to create a live broadcast variety show that has become popular. First, because the live broadcast content is still impossible to achieve the viewing experience of recording variety shows in a short period of time in terms of plot rhythm and production. Second, the number of viewers of live broadcast variety shows before was smaller and the cost was higher, which made it inevitable that non-vertical platforms would hesitate when developing top projects. The problem of
still exists. Taking Gao Jiesi's "It's not easy to pick up girls and go home" as an example, although the dialogue mode in a private car has a good point of view output, when the content deviates from the existing concept of brand live broadcast, if the content is not good enough, it is actually difficult to leave the expected different audiences. At the same time, the audience's judgment criteria will be to compare the dialogue programs that have been watched, rather than live broadcasts.
"Sounds Like Summer Flowers" program itself is recorded content, but as an important daily live broadcast part of the program, it is difficult to say that it has widened the gap with previous live broadcasts. The live broadcast content itself has not yet truly formed an iteration of audience experience. In terms of stage texture, it is also a big gap with the actual performance programs of long video platforms in recent years.
It is true that as the internal ecosystem of the platform and the audience will have content that is private domain traffic to a certain extent. These content quality that introduces variety show style to the live broadcast room will actually have better user inclusion. On the other hand, it is not easy to truly penetrate the live broadcast ecosystem before the content is made.
Take "Sound Like Summer Flowers" as an example. Since the third episode, it has maintained a single episode playback volume of 45-50 million, and a single episode likes of 200,000+. This data should be said to be considered a top-notch in Kuaishou's own variety shows. However, if the MAU of the platform's live broadcast ecosystem exceeds 500 million and the average paid users exceeds 50 million, the performance of related content seems to need to be improved.
In terms of introducing mature content formats and promoting the upgrade of live broadcast content, in addition to variety shows, the "medicine introduction" of the live broadcast industry is also a key direction, which is the dramatic. The main strategy is to shape characters with stories, drive user awareness with character settings and convert live broadcast traffic.
's content style in this field is, first, content short videos, such as @呢呢小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小小� The advantage of
's dramaticization is that it is more in line with audience expectations. Most viewers' demand for dramas is still focused on the story and characters. Excellence in this aspect can cover up the shortcomings in production. During the live broadcast process, only a few links need to highlight the storyline and continue the story character to meet the "short-straight" content linkage.
Compared with
, the content of variety shows has not yet explored the benign style of micro-variety shows, so it is necessary to cultivate users' viewing habits especially on short video platforms; the second is that in the past two years, the spread of variety shows and the immersion of audiences have declined, and the overall industry also needs to be adjusted. From the perspective of content upgrade, there is still a lot of room for exploration.
, but it should be believed that upgrading live content is still a long-term process, and there is also time to open up more possibilities for variety shows. At least in the short term, the brand is willing to take the initiative to try, and the platform's strategic intentions are also clear. For example, "Sound Like Summer Flowers" can also receive the title sponsorship of the Qibang APP, providing energy for further exploration in related fields. The future trend of the content industry in
is that live broadcast will further narrow the quality gap between comparative recording and broadcasting and enhance the audience's audio-visual experience. The value of these variety shows in the current live broadcast room may be more clear at that time.
Author: Pangbu, Editor: Park Fang; Official Account: Rhino Entertainment (ID: piaofangtoushijing)
Original link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/IS-MVpGo7bY8GaSKsOQyWg
This article is authorized by @Rhino Entertainment. Everyone is a product manager. Reproduction of
Without the author's permission, the title picture is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol
The views of this article only represent the author himself, Renren are all product managers. The platform only provides information storage space services.
